"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stool is a kettle of water with a board over it. A stream of water comes from the organ. There is a horse near which kicks or bites me. Again:—I play on the piano to a friend who is a German scholar the opening theme of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. My friend tells me the pronunciation of the title of the opera and it sounds to me like Froebel. That the name of the world-famous music drama, the apotheosis of passion, should be transformed to that of the notable child educator is nonsense or otherwise according to the observer's point ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... noticed the stranger standing in the shadow, followed her dear Fraeulein. The door was left open, and Willibald could hear a cover laid back cautiously and a chair pushed gently in place. Then she began a low prelude. The sounds which the old worn out spinet gave forth were tremulous and thin, and made one think of an ancient harp; but the maiden's voice recalled the lark's song ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... suspected it, but Stevens was an epicure in beauty. He insisted on our closing our eyes till we came to just the spot where the view was most perfect, and then he drew in his horses, gave the word, and we looked on a valley as lovely as a dream. I am glad that we saw it as we did, after a long prelude of shaded roads and sentinel trees. Nowadays you rush to it madly by train and motor. Then it was a dear secret hidden away in ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... with the guttural ejaculation, Ho! and ranged himself with the rest, squatted on the earthen floor or on the platform along the sides of the house. The kettles were slung over the fires in the midst. First, there was a long prelude of lugubrious singing. Then the host, who took no share in the feast, proclaimed in a loud voice the contents of each kettle in turn, and at each announcement the company responded in unison, Ho! The attendant squaws filled with their ladles the bowls of all the guests. There ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... the status of surgery during his time. He also explains the reasons that forced him to write on this topic and why he wished to include, as he did, precautions, advice, instructional notes, and beautifully illustrated surgical drawings. For example, the prelude to the treatise mentions four incidents that he witnessed, all ending with tragic results because of the ignorance of physicians who attempted to operate on patients without the proper training in anatomy and surgical manipulation. ...
— Drawings and Pharmacy in Al-Zahrawi's 10th-Century Surgical Treatise • Sami Hamarneh
... like the prelude of a song to her. She listened for more, with a smile, a real smile, no more wise, but foolish. It had the foolishness of all love in it, so easily and completely could he give her ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... they might guide themselves by the sun during the day, and by the pole-star at night, but if once the sky was overcast, they would become entirely at a loss for their bearings. Hence the discovery of the polar tendency of the magnetic needle was a necessary prelude to any extended voyages away from land. This appears to have been known to the Chinese from quite ancient times, and utilised on their junks as early as the eleventh century. The Arabs, who voyaged to Ceylon and Java, appear to have learnt its use from ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... the prelude to action, it became all powerful in mythology and superstition. Certain things would help you get your wishes, others would obstruct them. Wishes became animate and had power,—power to destroy an ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... natives use their arms against the wild animals of the forest. The dangers and difficulties they encounter in overcoming them form a kind of prelude to war, and perfect them in the use of their weapons. The rifle of the North American Indian would never be so much dreaded did he not depend upon its produce for his subsistence. I have myself (during my travels through North America) had many opportunities of witnessing the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... exposure to the noxious atmosphere of the jungle, proved inimical to the constitution of the king. On his return to Bangkok he complained of general weariness and prostration, which was the prelude to fever. Foreign physicians were consulted, but at no stage of the case was any European treatment employed. He rapidly grew worse, and was soon past saving. On the day before his death he called to his bedside his nearest relatives, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... was only a prelude, followed on 6 June by a blockade of the Greek coasts, established in pursuance of orders from Paris and London—pourpeser sur la Grece et lui montrer qu'elle etait a notre merci.[14] Even this measure, ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... managed to secure himself against the competition of any rival. The capture of Shirpurla must have been one of his earliest achievements, for its proximity to Gish-khu rendered its reduction a necessary prelude to any more extensive plan of conquest. But the kingdom which Lugalzaggisi ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... certain to the pure and true: success to falsehood and corruption, tyranny and aggression, is only the prelude to a greater and an irremediable fall.—STUBBS, Seventeen Lectures, 20. The Carlylean faith, that the cause we fight for, so far as it is true, is sure of victory, is the necessary basis of all effective activity for good.—CAIRD, Evolution ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... over me. I can remember the struggle, the exertion it was to dress for the party. Twenty times I was tempted to send a message saying I was too unwell to go, but my better angel prevailed—and I went. To what an eventful period was that evening but the prelude! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... secured from the love of it; you must insure their magnanimity in office by a counter-charm. But where is such a charm, or counter-charm, to be found? Throughout, as usual in so provident a writer as Plato, the answer to that leading [263] question has had its prelude, even in ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... obliged either to admit that every act of Congress is without any force in a State until it has obtained the tacit approval of the people of that State, or else it will be driven to the necessity of obtaining the enforcement of the law by arms. Such employment of force would of course be but the prelude to secession. Indeed, South Carolina, in her Ordinance of Nullification, declared that she would secede, if the United States did not repeal the obnoxious laws, or if she should attempt to enforce the collections of the tariff duties provided ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... flowers of which the hot-houses had been despoiled, and which were redundant with all the luxuriance of unequaled beauty; the perfect harmony of everything which surrounded them, and which indeed was no more than the prelude of the promised fete, more than charmed all who were there, and who testified their admiration over and over again, not by voice or gesture, but by deep silence and rapt attention, those two languages of the courtier ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... place, if possible, to surprise their enemies; and, in the second, to endeavour to alarm and confound them. This latter is doubtless partly the purpose of the song and dance, which form with them the constant prelude to the assault, although these vehement expressions of passion operate also powerfully as excitements to their own sanguinary valour and ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Pan himself had wandered here A-strolling through this sordid city, And piping to the civic ear The prelude of some pastoral ditty! The demigod had crossed the seas,— From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, And Syracusan times,—to these Far shores and ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Cami," musical as they are, have lent no prelude to these harmonies of science, we must say in a few plain words of prose our own first thought as to the work the commencement of which lies before us. We believe, that, if completed according to its promise, it is to be one of the monumental labors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... fact, no answer was necessary or wise. He walked forward, and, partly from his half-blindness, partly from his disorganized state of mind, passed to windward of Snelling, the second mate, who was coming aft to dinner. Snelling said nothing in the way of prelude, but crashed his fist on Rogers's already mutilated face, and sent him again to the deck. As Rogers struggled ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... movements over, M. le Duc d'Orleans, rising a little in his seat, said to the company, in a tone more firm, and more like that of a master than before, that there was another matter now to attend to, much more important than the one just heard. This prelude increased the general astonishment, and rendered everybody motionless. After a moment of silence the Regent said, that the peers had had for some time good grounds of complaint against certain persons, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... death would be the most glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, from the calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with which these distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this was their last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But when the cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowers alone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at times rose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in sallies of wit and outbursts of laughter, endeavored ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... free, is to introduce the principle and the notion of liberty into the heart of slavery; the blacks, whom the law thus maintains in a state of slavery from which their children are delivered, are astonished at so unequal a fate, and their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and irritation. Thenceforward slavery loses in their eyes that kind of moral power which it derived from time and habit; it is reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The northern states had nothing to fear from the contrast, because in them the blacks ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... admirably fitting prelude to another historic event of that same week. On the last anniversary we shall ever keep of our venerable Queen's birthday, on May 24th, the Orange River Colony was formally annexed to the British Empire, and Victoria was proclaimed its gracious ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... thing to Alister to seem for a moment to follow the example of the recreant chiefs whose defection to feudalism was the prelude to their treachery toward their people, and whose faithlessness had ruined the highlands. But unlike Glengarry or "Esau" Reay, he desired to sell his land that he might keep his people, care for them, and share with them: his people ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... this is only a preliminary. These Tartars have been, and might still he troublesome neighbors. The Muscovites are driving them off, finding their country would be a convenient extension of their own limits; and as a prelude to another revolution, the throne ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... of Independence was the avowed expedient and prelude for an alliance with France and Spain against the Mother Country; proofs and illustrations; the secret and double game played between the Congress and France, both before and after the Declaration of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... detail, can indeed see or hear little else. So much in this place do men live by pain that my friendship with you, in the way through which I am forced to remember it, appears to me always as a prelude consonant with those varying modes of anguish which each day I have to realise, nay more, to necessitate them even; as though my life, whatever it had seemed to myself and others, had all the while been a real symphony of sorrow, passing through its rhythmically linked movements ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... soprano is the principal part, and that the other voices, while somewhat melodic, tend rather to support and follow the melody than to be independent. If, now, we play a piece of counterpoint like the G-Minor Prelude by Bach,[47] we shall have quite a good piece of counterpoint, as far as separate melodies being combined is concerned. Let us play the voice-parts separately. We shall find equal melodic interest in each. The ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... of 1826, closing the life of one of the longest parliaments in modern times, was the prelude to a very eventful year. The general election brought into prominence the two burning questions of catholic relief and the corn laws, and unseated for the moment Brougham, Cobbett, Hunt, and Lord John Russell, but it produced no material ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... have? Why, I never dances to but one tune," and Jake started the first line of "Oh, plantation gals, can't you look at a body," while Bacchus was giving a prelude of scrapes and twangs. Jake made a circle of somersets, and come down on his head, with his heels in the air, going through flourishes that would have astonished an uninitiated observer. As it was, Jake's audience were in a high condition of enjoyment. They were in a constant state ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... which I was from this time forward embarked.' In other words, if he could have interpreted and classified his own intellectual type, he would have known that it was the Reflective. Reflection is a faculty that ripens slowly; the prelude of its maturity is often a dull and apparently numb-witted youth. Though Pattison conceived his ideal at the age of twenty, he was five-and-forty before he finally and deliberately embraced it and shaped his life in conformity ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... incapable of being vanquished in battle even by all the celestials and the Asuras (fighting together). We think, however, that he should be vanquished in a personal struggle with bare arms. In me is policy, in Bhima is strength and in Arjuna is triumph; and therefore, as prelude to performing the Rajasuya, we will certainly achieve the destruction of the ruler of Magadha. When we three approach that monarch in secret, and he will, without doubt, be engaged in an encounter with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that pulled out his purse, And a doctor that took the sum; But he let them be—for he knew that the "fee" Was a prelude ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... against herself. She recoiled, without well knowing why, before the ferocious passions of her kinsman, and was convinced that she had nothing to hope from his implacable temper. But her alarm was the prelude of firmness, and not ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... in all the circumstances which formed the prelude to this contemplated tragedy. Hitherto the Queen-mother had created dangers for herself—had started at shadows—and distrusted even those who sought to serve her; while her son, silent, saturnine, and ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... lady, gazing around upon her victims with a benignant smile, "without further prelude, I will inform you for what object I have asked you to honor me with your ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... finally, the obtaining of undisputed sovereignty over a great part of the anthracite coal mines. The warfare now began without those fanciful ceremonials, heralds or proclamations considered so necessary by Governments as a prelude to slaughter. These formalities are ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... prelude to "The Flower of Old Japan" comes that same note, like a bluebird in springtime, that note of belief, of ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... saw," said Pet, and viciously started to change the subject, so that Prissy had to jump the prelude. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... which you edify one another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to improvise. Now what do you suppose ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... from the arm of Ione, still cast round her, as if that soft embrace embarrassed; and placing her light and graceful instrument on her knee, after a short prelude, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... a common bird all through this region. Its song is very delicate and plaintive,—a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which disappoints one, however, as it ends when it seems only to have begun. If the bird could give us the finishing strain of which this seems only the prelude, it would stand ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... small plant, but just as I got it started a tremendous storm came up, and every bit of that black sand went out to sea. During the twenty-eight years that have intervened it has never come back." This incident was really the prelude to the development set forth ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... law, not to be lightly broken by either rich or poor. Its non-observance usually implied some sorrowful element, and Mary's national, as well as natural desire, as therefore toward an elaborate festal ceremony. As soon as this intention was put into words their very echo seemed to be a prelude to ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... announced expedient and prelude to an alliance with France and Spain against the Mother ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Architectural League. In this fountain the idea of man's evolution takes a subtler and more profound significance. In general, it shows the development and growth of love from its lower to higher forms and the upward effect of that spiritualization upon the life of the earth. In the secondary group, a prelude and epilogue to the main composition, on the prow of the Ship of Earth are grouped the loves, greeds, passions, griefs and spiritual cravings of man and woman, who come and go from the Unknown to the Unknowable. The great arms of Destiny, pushing and pointing, giving and taking, ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... well on her way up river before she was seen. "Although it was a starlight night," wrote Lieutenant Perkins, who by her commander's direction was piloting the ship, "we were not discovered until well under the forts; then they opened upon us a tremendous fire." It was the prelude to a drama of singular energy and grandeur, for the Confederates in the forts were fully on their guard, and had anticipated with unshaken courage, but with gloomy forebodings, an attack during that very night. "There will be no to-morrow for New ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... early childhood, like a beautiful dawn, the prelude of a bright day. Already they partook with their mothers the cares of the household. As soon as the cry of the wakeful cock announced the first beam of the morning, Virginia arose, and hastened to draw water from a neighbouring spring; then ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Hencastle" is not mine. It is a free translation from the German of Victor Bluethgen, by Major Yeatman-Biggs, R.A., to whom I am indebted for permission to include it in my volume, as a necessary prelude to "Flaps." The story took my fancy greatly, but the ending seemed to me imperfect and unsatisfactory, especially in reference to so charming a character as the old watch dog, and I ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... mention that Fuddle, in his love of decorum—though he scarce ever sat in judgment without absorbing his punch the while—never permitted in his forum the use of those knock-down arguments which were always a prelude to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... daily. At the end of that time he emphasised his appreciation by making her a present of a valuable violin. She still continued her regular studies with Jokisch, until, acting on the advice of her friends, she obtained a hearing from Ysaye, and played for him Bach's prelude and fugue ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... heard of men needing an introduction to a beautiful song. Prose before poetry is an unmeaning interruption; for poetry is perhaps the one thing in the world that explains itself. The only possible prelude for songs is silence; and I shall endeavour here to imitate the brevity of the silence as well as ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then Secretary of State, gave vent to an outburst of unaccustomed profanity. Mr. Robert Calverley, who represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had resigned his office without prelude or any word of explanation. This infuriated Bute, since his pet scheme was to make peace with Russia and thereby end the Continental War. Now all was to do again; the minister raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... either party, insisting upon due insurances, ensuring private incomes for each partner, securing the welfare of the children, and laying down equitable conditions in the event of a divorce or separation. Such a treaty ought to be a necessary prelude to the issue of a licence to marry. And given such a basis to go upon, then I see no reason why, in the case of couples who remain childless for five or six years, let us say, and seem likely to remain childless, the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... castle walls. On the surface of the lake were little boats, painted and gilt, so pretty and dainty that the princess challenged the ambassadors to a voyage. None hesitated to do so, for they thought it was all a gay pastime, and a merry prelude to the marriage festivities. But no sooner had they embarked than boats, fountains, and lake vanished, and the ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... into the shanty suspended the conversation for a moment only, and then General Sherman, without prelude, rehearsed his plans for moving his army, pointing out with every detail how he would come up through the Carolinas to join the troops besieging Petersburg and Richmond, and intimating that my cavalry, after striking the Southside and Danville ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... and her son gazed on the debutante—they had no word, no look for each other: for they recognised in her voice the tones of a grief of which long ago they heard the prelude—and every note found its echo in the bishop's ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... leave my rivers in the shadow. After all, this life is only a prelude, a beginning: we pass on to where "the rivers and streams make glad the city of God." But if we will not listen here how ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... looked at her, and set down the half-finished cup without opening her lips. If the speech had come from any other than Wark, it would have been easy to believe it merely the prelude to complaint of a fellow-servant or plea for a rise in wages. But if Wark objected to a fellow-servant, her own view of the matter had always been that the other one should go. Her mistress knew ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... always! The words come back to me as I lie here in this great, dreary bedchamber, with a cold-faced priest muttering comfortless prayers by my side; dying alone, without a single kindly face to lighten my passage to the grave. Yet, do not read this as a reproach! Read it only as the prelude to this my last appeal to you! Marry me, Martin! It would cost you so little: just a hurried journey here, a few sentences over my bedside, a week's waiting at the most, and you could see me in my grave, and feel yourself free again. Is it too great a thing ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Coming, sometimes with immense prelude and preparation, as when King Charles himself arrived to replace an image disfigured by profane Huguenots, sometimes with the secrecy and suddenness of an apparition vanished before the public was aware, the pilgrims ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... Two-fold, for the Dead, for the Living—for the Dear Poet, for the Beloved Mother! The linking of their names together, under this Spray of Kentucky Pine—culled by a hand most loving—is like unto finding the other half of a broken Chord, in some Prelude Elusive: for James Whitcomb Riley, deeply endeared himself, to the Dear Lady Here, while he and her son were a long while away, on their Reading Tour. Out of sheer Kindliness, out of Goodness of Heart, he ...
— A Spray of Kentucky Pine • George Douglass Sherley
... took part, was or threatened to be a reproduction of the Mutiny. In the first days, as a measure of precaution, European women and children had been hurriedly collected into places of refuge lest the horrible excesses perpetrated by the Indian mob at Amritsar might prove the prelude to a repetition of Cawnpore. The hardships and anxiety they underwent and the murderous outrages actually committed on not a few Europeans moved most of their fellow countrymen and countrywomen to unmeasured resentment, and not until they gained at last a fuller ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... of this paper was the prelude to much calamity in New England for many years; but how well it has justified itself! Such words are a living power, surviving the lapse of many generations, and flaming up fresh and vigorous above the decay of centuries. The patriotism which they express is of more avail than the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... past summer's prime, When other throats have ceased to chime, Thy faithful tree-top strain; No brilliant bursts our ears enthrall— A prelude with a "dying fall," That soothes ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... representer ces choses, les actes sont comparativement tout, et les mobiles ne sont plus rien. L'emotion sublime ou nous sommes entraines par ces images de nuit et d'horreur qu'exprime Macbeth; ce solennel prelude ou il s'oublie jusqu'a ce que l'horloge sonne l'heure qui doit l'appeler au meurtre de Duncan; lorsque nous ne lisons plus cela dans un livre, lorsque nous avons abandonne ce poste avantageux de l'abstraction d'ou la lecture domine ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... creations, but mainly the product of a judicious eclecticism. Sir William Hamilton was a vast polyhistor long before he could be called a philosopher, or even thought himself one. Researches the most persistent in nearly every department of letters were with him the indispensable prelude ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... arguments to me? In Miquelon champagne's eighteen dollars a case and—" The skipper lurched into his seat as an organ-prelude silenced him. ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... the best-reputed older musicians, a friend and companion of Mendelssohn (whom I have already mentioned apropos of the tempo di menuetto of the eighth symphony), [Footnote: Ferdinand Hiller] to play the eighth Prelude and Fugue from the first part of "Das Wohltemperirte Clavier" (E flat minor), a piece which has always had a magical attraction for me. [Footnote: i.e. Prelude VIII., from Part I. of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues.] He very kindly complied, and ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... came from the parlor, with a sound of fright in it. "I can sing it without the music." The piano keys twittered the prelude and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... splendid prelude to his play of Henry V., is a spirited appeal to his audience not to waste regrets on defects of stage machinery, but to bring to the observation of his piece their highest powers of imagination, whereby alone can full justice be done ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... seeing her disorder, and having little time to waste, came quickly forward and took her in his arms without apology or prelude, as is (they say) wisest in ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... eyes were fixed upon the future. No two women had ever been loved as they were loved. All this work, this washing and ironing, it resembled nothing more than the opening scene in an opera: a sort of prelude, for the sake of contrast. They would see—O-o-oh, yes, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... left him than he came to Louisa, thinking it his duty to give her warning of the count's design, and that it would be a proper prelude to something else he had to say. As the servants knew she was not perfectly well, they told him, they believed she would see no company; but on his entreating it, and saying he had something of moment to impart, one of them went in and repeated what he had said, on which ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... physical as well as the spiritual plane—is immoral because it is "unnatural." Again and again it will be found to lead to a violent reaction of feeling—a repulsion which is as intense and violent as the devotion which was its prelude. ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... despised; now they were all cutting bits out of China for themselves, extracting from the government one privilege after another, and quite openly dividing China into "spheres of interest", obviously as the prelude to annexation of the ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... forward, to the Haynes-Cooper plant and the fight that was before her. There settled about her mouth a certain grim line that sat strangely on so young a face. The service marched on. There came the organ prelude that announced the mourners' prayer. Then Rabbi Thalmann began to intone the Kaddish. Fanny rose, prayer book in hand. At that Clarence Heyl rose too, hurriedly, as one unaccustomed to the service, and stood with unbowed ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... silent obedience of a man-of-war's man, Hockins went off, and, without prelude, began. Dead silence was the instant result, for the small bird-like pipe seemed to charm the very soul of every one who heard it. We know not whether it was accident or a spice of humour in the seaman, but the tune he played was "Jock o' Hazeldean!" And as Mark hurried off to see ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... singing, just for pleasure. At such times the long series of notes do not come forth with a rush; he begins deliberately with a series of musical chirps uttered in a measured manner, like those of a wood wren, the prelude to its song, the notes coming faster and faster and swelling and running into the loud chuckling performance. This performance, like the lost drake's call, was repeated in the same deliberate or leisurely manner at intervals again and again, until my curiosity was aroused and I went ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Rosas, in Catalonia. It has already been observed that the French general, St Cyr, had entered that country, and, having taken Figueras and Gerona, was looking with a wistful eye on the castle of Trinity, on the south-east side, the capture of which would be a certain prelude to the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... remaining there quietly for a year, regaining her health and spirits, and had now returned to her uncle's home, lightening her mourning, going out a little, taking up her old interests again one by one—a fitting and dignified prelude for a new establishment of her own. She could not help being pleased and gratified at the warmth of her reception; and she found, as Austin had predicted, that "New York looked pretty good to her." ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... the prelude to a stranger story! I have come to confide in you because you have known me all my life, doctor, and because you are the most intimate friend my ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Germany had, in fact, to choose between national unity and State unity; and she chose the latter, partly because Prussia really decided the matter for her, partly because she realised that the establishment of a strong German State was the essential prelude to the creation of a strong united nation. Austria had to be shut out in 1866 in order that she might be received back again at some later date on Germany's own terms. In the second place Austria ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... through the crannies at his back; how his body tingled all over with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the far-away hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage of the 'Prelude,' has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the other way with as ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... older generation of Giggleswick boys look back with peculiar affection to the days when they were in his form—The Transitus—as it was then called. They remember his enthusiasm and his loyalty and his conscientious devotion to the School. Many had hoped that his retirement from active work would prelude some years of life released from anxiety, but death has claimed him with the hope unfulfilled. In May, 1912, he made his last visit to the School and two days ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... the war was of the greatest consequence, as it raised the spirits and confidence of the British, while it proportionably depressed the enemy, and proved the prelude of that succession of victories which at length crushed the power of France and secured the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the Nilghai opened his eyes. The old chanty whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not a pretty one, but Dick had heard it many times before without wincing. Without prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together and troubles the hearts of the gipsies of ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Both nations were preparing for strife; the occasion seemed good for fishing in troubled waters. D'Argenson notes that it is a fair opportunity to make use of Charles. Now we scrape acquaintance with a new spy, Oliver Macallester, an Irish Jacobite adventurer. {286} Macallester, after a long prelude, tells us that his 'private affairs' brought him to Dunkirk in 1755. On returning to London he was apprehended at Sheerness, an ungrateful caitiff having laid information to the effect that our injured hero 'had ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... chords, he could see how the furtive tears coursed down the cheeks of the loving girl, or the young, neglected wife; how they moistened the eyes of the young man, enamoured of and eager for glory. Can we not fancy some young beauty asking him to play a simple prelude, then, softened by the tones, leaning her rounded arms upon the instrument to support her dreaming head, while she suffered the young artist to divine in the dewy glitter of her lustrous eyes the song sung by her ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... unusual to make it within a few hours of the time fixed for the execution. The Home Secretary was, of course, unable to comply with Mr. Bright's prayer, but this scene in the House of Commons was undoubtedly a solemn one, more solemn and impressive than the tragedy to which it was the prelude. Donald and I, when the House at last rose, sauntered slowly through the streets, taking note of that night side of London, which was novel to both of us. In the early hours of the morning we found ourselves at Covent Garden, where we watched the unloading of the vegetable ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... about holding up photographic portraits of the tamer, lustily shouting his professional and private virtues. Their voices were, however, soon drowned in the clash of the brass band, which played a prelude to what was coming. At the conclusion of this a lone and last voice cried out, "Ice-cold lemonade," but it was promptly suppressed by those near the crier, as ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the prelude to a grand orchestral performance. Beginning somewhat softly, Hodge fires away with a gravity and emotion which do him infinite credit, each succeeding repetition of the word "stwuns" being rendered with ever-increasing pathos and emphasis, until, like the final burst of an orchestral prelude, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... explained tearfully, and stuck to her story, even when the sorely tried superintendent led her to the tracks and showed her that said track absolutely and finally ended there, without argument or compromise. And she was furious. Her former outburst was a mild prelude to what poured forth now. She would not stay there until morning when the next train left. She demanded a special train; she ordered a handcar with which to overtake the recreant train; she called for a taxi to chase ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Thus, without prelude:—Age and zeal—my office— And good intent must plead my privilege; Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, May also be my herald. Rumours strange, And of unholy nature, are abroad, 30 And busy with thy name—a noble name For centuries: may he who ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... said the barber, "I give my word here and before God that I will not repeat what your worship says, to King, Rook or earthly man—an oath I learned from the ballad of the curate, who, in the prelude, told the king of the thief who had robbed him of the hundred gold crowns and his ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... lumbering, and undermanned. The subsequent career of the United States ship "Wasp," and the audacious exploits of several privateers, recall the impunity of Paul Jones a generation before, and form a sequel to the brief prelude, in which the leading part, though ultimately disastrous, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... satisfaction, but the indispensable "staff of life" for certain human beings. In their unfaltering faith in God's enduring and proximate actuality lies their sole source of security and trust. For such persons a lapse or a lack of faith is the prelude to utter collapse. A vague general assurance of the dependability of the future is, for most people, a prerequisite for a sane and untroubled existence. Even those who live in unreflective satisfaction with the fruits of the moment would ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... gentleman at this moment fell forward with such weight, that Tamar ran from behind him, and dropping down on her knees, received his head on her shoulder, then, putting one arm round him, she was glad to hear a long, deep sigh, the prelude of his returning to partial consciousness; and as he opened his eyes, he said,—"Ah, Rachel, is it you? You have been gone ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood] |
